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For Ill Eagle in past years, go to
www.ivorcatt.com/99.htm or to www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/1csetz.htm and
www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/1cset0.htm Solicitors'
body comes to heel - Times, 1nov01, p15 The solicitors'
complaints body, which is accused today of failing to give the public crucial
information about its members' track records, is to lose its idependent
identity. The Office for
the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS), which receives 16,085 complaints a year,
one for every five solicitors, is to be brought under the direct control of
the Law Society of England and Wales. The move comes as
a Which? report says that the
organisation's helpline is far from helpful and fails to tell people if their
solicitor has been disciplined or struck off. "The OSS seemed reluctant
or unable to give out the correct information," it said. Solicitors
under fire Letter from Mr
John Wilson, Times, 1nov01, p21 Sir, David
Blunkett has angered solicitors by casting aspersions on their professional
standards (report, oct29). For ten years I have been specialising in
representing clients who have a complaint about a solicitor, so I know
something about furious lawyers. The lawyers are
quite right in pointing out just the latest example of the executive branch
not always being entirely
full-square with civil liberties. But they are hardly a shining beacon
themselves. Time and time
again I have been consulted by a client who has been let down by a lawyer
making the sort of elementary mistakes that any sane person would just own up
to and refer to the insurance company, only to be met by the professional
shutters slamming down. In contrast to the frequent
stories of doctors being exposed and unished for incompatence, lawyers seem
to be immune from this sort of coverage. Mr Blunkett's outburst makes a
pleasant change, but at what cost to our liberties? Yours, John Wilson
(Solicitor), 6a Rodney Lane,
Leeds LS13 1HU Solicitor
jailed - Times, 11dec01, p4 A solicitor with
assets of more than £1 million stole £73,000 from a 91-year-old aunt to buy a
luxury boat. David Benham, 59, of Southwark, London, who denied stealing from
an account set aside to pay for nursing home fees, was jailed for six months
by Winchester Crown Court. Solicitors
bring in Layman to see fair play - Francis Gibb, Times, 25jan02, p6 The solicitors'
complaints system, which handles 12,000 grievances a year, is to be
overhaouled and placed under the scrutiny of a non-;awyer for the first time.
.... in an effort to boost public confidence .... The society has
succeeded so far in seeing off ministerial threats that it be stripped if its
self-regulatory powers. .... Two years ago,
.... complainants .... were told that they would have to wait a year before
their grievances were dealt with., the Lord Chancellor threatened to remove
the Law Society's power to regulate itself. .... Bar
for the course Cambridge lecturer
Gillian Evans has gone back to being a student on the Bar vocational course.
She is unimpressed. - Guardian Education, 8jan02, p12 .... Students who
are made to feel it would be unwise to use their critical faculties until
after they are safely "called". A culture of toadying is actively
fostered, for one must network to get the best pupillages. .... .... the
depth of the institutionalised discrimination they practise. .... .... While
winds of change at the Bar Council and the Law Society are stopped by
draught-excluders of complacency and students' fear of professional
disadvantage if they say what they think, all this will presumably go on.
.... it needs to be run in a way that will produce barristers who will take a
lead in the reform of the legal profession. .... Lawrence
sergeant cleared of rapes - Sam Lister, Times, 11dec01, p4 Accusations of
multiple rape against a police sergeant who was highly praised in the Stephen
Lawrence murder inquiry were thrown out at the Old Bailey yesterday. The trial of
Peter Solley, accused of raping a woman on nine occasions, was stopped after
Judge David Paget described the alleged victim's evidence as "manifestly
unreliable". The woman said that Sergeant Solley, 47, had committed the
rapes during a secret fuive-year relationship, but after three days of
cross-examination the prosecution dropped all charges. The .... woman, a
black community worker, .... the defence, suggested that the woman made the
accusations because Sergeant Solley had rejected her. .... Sergeant Solley,
from Beckenham, Kent, said: "I find it astonishing that the complainant
can be shielded by anonymity, despite the finding that she is a proven
liar." Women
should go it alone - Jeremy Campbell, Evening
Standard,
4dec01, p20 A startling survey had
found that women learn about one third less than men in college. Nearly
20,000 students at 56 colleges were interviewed, comparing scores on a
standardised test. Gender was a "huge" factor, according to
Professor Ernest Pascarella of the University of Iowa. Women fell behind most
in maths and science. .... Spouse - Steve Doughty, Daily
Mail, 20july01 The Crown
Prosecution Service has banned its 6,000 employees from using the word
'spouse'. In future, those working at the organisation responsible for
bringing all criminal prosecutions will have to refer to 'partners' or
'friends' whenever they invite a colleague to a social event. Using the term
'spouse' assumes someone is married and leaves homosexuals feeling excluded,
claimed a rulebook designed to eliminate discrimination. Two
days before - Melanie Phillips, Sunday
Times, 9sep01,
p17 .... Liberal
values will be protected only if Christianity holds the line as our dominant
culture. A society which professes neutrality between cultures would create a
void which Islam, with its militant political creed, would attempt to fill.
.... society is beginning to understand the need for truth-telling, family
stability and distinctions between right and wrong, against all of which the
Establishment has set its face. .... Prisons - Rechel Sylvester, Telegraph, 17dec01, p12 HM Chief
Inspector of Prisons, .... forced out of his job .... he was shocked to find
staff in a mental ward had been falsifying suicide watch records. .... the
Home Office is "a terrible place". .... the Home Office bureaucracy
has "spiralled out of control". .... "Civil servants .... not
used to putting things into practice .... Very few of our ministers have ever
run anything, either - they're all professional politicians. ...." Dworkin "I want to
see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like
an apple in the mouth of a pig." - Andrea Dworkin, leading feminist
speaker, speaking through a character in her book Ice and Fire. Gloria Steinmen says of Andrea Dworkin;
"In every century, there are a handful of writers who help the human
race to evolve. Andrea is one of them". Quoted by Warren Farrell in his
book; Women Can't Hear ....,
pub. Tarcher/Putnam 1999, p179. Recently, Dworkin
co-authored a book with the other extremist Catherine MacKinnon, who played a
part in drafting recent Canadian legislation. ".... rape,
which by conservative definition happened to almost half of all women at
least once in their lives." - C A MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, pub. Harvard Univ.
Press 1989, p142. Do
children come first? - Cristina Odone,
Observer, 20jan02, p23 .... a baby had
been ditched at the roadside by his mama. .... the 24-year-old had already
dumped an older child, whome she had left with her mother to raise. Charles,
the three-month-old baby she left near the airport of Faro had a cleft lip
and palate. .... Dismissing a life as if it were an uninvited guest; opting
for instant gratification .... placing self above others - all deserve to be
roundly condemned .... Yet it is not. Or
at least not by the liberal commentators .... 'It is not always easy being a
parent,' proclaimed one headline, above a piece which went on to lay the
blame for bad mothers like Penny squarely on - you guessed it - men. .... It
allows women to regard motherhood as a project which entails no more
commitment than a Berlitz course in French, which they can .... always drop
out of. .... an arena for
competing rights .... she wins, hands down, every time .... lots of
supporters .... will raise a wail of apologies on her behalf. [I am mystified
by the remark "the liberal commentators" being allowed in the Observer. For years, the
Observer/Guardian stable has fronted a more vicious attack on the family and
on men than anyone else. However, it seemed to wobble more than a year ago,
when it allowed in Rabinovich even though she was under the influence of
Oliver Cyriax. Perhaps Melanie Phillips could go back now! - Ed] The
Real Goal of Feminism: Transforming Society - Antonia Feltz, 2/3/00 Speech delivered
at the Inverell Forum. At
www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/THE REAL GOAL OF FEMINISM.htm This is perhaps
the definitive anslysis and indictment of what I call the Radfem Ideology,
but Feltz would tend to make me call it Feminazi. Reading it had a powerful
effect on me. Show it to your well-meaning women friends. - Ed How
fathers fit into the family A fact sheet for
secondary schools from CIVITAS which is in general agreement with ManKind.
For example; "Statistics about
children who do not live with their fathers can be grim. On almost every
outcome that has been tested, including educational achievement, self-esteem,
responsible social behaviour, and adjustment as adults, children do better
when they live with both parents." See www.ivorcatt.com/2801.htm CIVITAS, tel 020 7401 5471 www.civitas.org.uk The
cost of Radfem policies Generally,
Britain plans to follow NZ's expensive radfem policies, which our chairman
said would bankrupt them.. Date: 08 January
2002 06:02 Dear Julian, RE New Zealand, navy cuts
and RW's prediction. Do you recall the
email exchange we had [two years ago] about New Zealand and its expenditure
on social services and legal aid ? I said it would
soon have to give up its defence capability and rely on Australia if it continued
on its present path. Well, it looks
like that prediction is coming true. The BBC reports,
within the last 48 hours, that NZ is to give up most of its surface fleet. I got it slightly
wrong when I said that all they would be left with would be a few frigates.
It seems that they're going to give those up and keep the supply ships
instead. And the airforce,
of about 18 planes, is up for sale too. Robert Whiston Cohabitees
to adopt children! With or without
children, only 4% of cohabitees stay together for more than 10 years. Source,
Lynette Burrows, our conference speaker. The
right to life Sadly, Afghan
women have been deprived of their right to education, employment, and freedom
of movement. At the same time, many thousands of Afghan men have been
selectively targeted in a series of involuntary inscriptions, forced
detentions, torture, and executions. As a result, many thousands of innocent
men have lost the most precious right of all: the right to life. [Full article at
www.ivorcatt.com/2006.htm] The
Intervening Variable Kaye Wellings et.
al, Sexual Behaviour in Britain,
pub. Penguin 1994, is the Gold Standard of statistics on the subject. Of
particular interest is their figure for homosexual practice. pp183/5, find
homosexuals number only around 1% of the population. (Ill
Eagle 10, p2) Buggery is a tiny minority sport, as is even the
desire to bugger. The winter 01/02
issue no. 106 of the FYC Bulletin, p1, discusses the follow-up articles to
the Wellings book, published in the Lancet
of 1dec01 (vol. 358). Here we see interesting manipulation of facts for
political ends. "The whole thrust of the article is immensely
encouraging to the govt, .... the most important predictor of early
motherhood is given as the educational level of the teenage girl. ....
[also,] 'the factors most strongly associated with risk behaviour and adverse
outcomes have considerable potential for preventive intervention'. "Lurking in
all these columns of figures is the uncomfortable fact of family structure.
.... [the article] ignores the extent to which educational level and family
structure are linked. [i.e. bad famly structure causes both teenage pregnancy
and also bad educational outcome.] Anyone who thinks that standards in
education can be raised irrespective of the home backgrounds of pupils
obviously hasn't been in a school lately. Unless the govt's teenage pregnancy
strategy is prepared to take family structure on board, the 'potential for
preventive intervention' may be less than the authors of this study seem to
think." The last
paragraph chillingly contrasts Wellings's statistic on people admitting to
ten or more partners with the large number who had had no partner at all;
".... for many people, the breakdown of the family brought about by the
sexual revolution has resulted in lives characterised by loneliness and
sterility." FYC
(Family & Youth Concern) is at www.famyouth.org.uk Josephine
Smith Shot her husband
as he slept. Convicted in 1993. Women's groups criticised the verdict. Has
now been referred to the Court of Appeal. www.ivorcatt.com/2007.htm More
girls than boys shoplift - John Steele, Telegraph, 5dec02 [21,000 men and
24,000 women] .... the growing predominance of schoolgirls .... was most
worrying. .... some offenders came from troubled backgrounds but about 50%
were from affluent families. Prostate
cancer and diet .... if you have any
specific questions relating to prostate cancer and diet, .... email
diet@prostate-cancer.org.uk or ring 020 8222 7622 |
|
Editorial Catch
22 Fiebert,
available on my website www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk and numerous other sources show us that domestic
violence (DV) is initiated more often by women than by men. This creates a
major problem when we discuss the issue with our female allies. They know
that women are not violent. Some years ago, I
emphasised to Melanie Phillips and to Erin Pizzey that whenever they make the
assertion, that women attack men more often than men attack women, they must
add the caveat that there is very little violence started by anybody. Home
Office Report No. 191, which gives violence from women as well as men at
4.2%, is a useful reference. The assertion
that women too are violent, made on its own, does not defend the traditional
family. Quite the reverse. In contrast, if joined by the assertion that there
is very little violence overall, it has a positive effect. The anti-family
axis which includes MacKinnon, Harman, Hewett, Dworkin, Stinko, Jay, Bindell,
will be helped, rather than hindered, by assertions that women are violent as
well. It is unwise to give them even more power, by helping their cause,
which is to destroy the traditional family on the grounds that it is a
dangerous place to be, as Stinko asserts. We may diverge
from some of our perceived allies on this matter. For instance, those who
want to get funding for refuges for male victims may exaggerate the problem.
What would be legitimate would be for them to assert that the problem of male
victims equals that for female victims. Let us hope that they desist from any
tendency to go beyond that. Mary Cleary of AMEN, who set up the first refuge
for battered men, and who now receives funding from the Irish govt, does not
overstep this mark. The Domestic
Violence Industry, which includes those who try to set up refuges for men,
continually broadens the definition of Domestic Violence in order to increase
their funding and their job security. Their definition, which is accepted by
government, now includes "Financial Violence" - the withdrawal of
money from one's spouse. It also includes shouting and also threat of
violence. (Extraordinarily, when Stinko says that one quarter of women
experience DV in the home, she is also saying that three quarters of women
have never been shouted at!) Given this, it is of major importance that those
who correctly say that men assault women no more less than women assault men,
include discussion of their definitions in the same piece. The issue is
clouded by the fact of attacks by men on men. However, that is a completely
different issue. The key to this is difference chivalry. Today it is completely overlooked, for good
reason, that from the cradle boys are taught to never attack a woman, and
they never do. The reason why this incessant training is ignored is that it
clashes with radfem dogma, that men are trained to oppress women, for
instance fathers sexually abusing their daughters in order to prepare them
for oppression later on within marriage. The continuance of a heavy theme of
chivalry in our society had to be overlooked if radfem dogma were to gain a
hold, as it has. The continuing reign of chivalry means that women may attack
women, men may attack men, women may attack men. Any attack by men on women
is outlawed. The reality, that
men do not attack women, explains the increasing shrillness of such charges;
for instance, the fantastic charge that men regularly kick pregnant women in
the stomach. Since the whole thing is a lie, it may as well be further
embroidered. DV - Dina
Rabinovirch, Guardian, 26nov01,
p6 .... Last year
was not good for Pizzey: she was diagnosed with cancer, and her grandson,
Kelta, a schizophrenic, committed suicide in a prison cell. .... she managed
to have the case reheard - last month a jury .... found unanimously that his
death was contributed to by the neglect of prison staff. .... a "legal
landmark" .... .... the
statistic that every third day a woman in this country is beaten or killed by
a current or ex-partner. When I repeat this to PIzzey, it causes her to
grimace. She doesn't accept the thesis - that only men need to change their
behaviour - or the figures. "If you come
from a dysfunctional, violent and sexually abusive family, how do you learn?
Therefore, domestic violence can't be a gender issue, it can't be just men
...." DV "One in four
women experience domestic violence at some stage in their lives" Poisonous,
socially destructive Stinko lies put out by the Church of England;
www.oxford.anglican.org/docs/100189446124996.shtml Dear Mr.
Catt, I request that you stop all
communication with me. I find the letters you forward to me abusive and
distressing. I am certain that your rmother and sister would be appalled if
they knew that you were so unkind to people you have never met. Sincerely,
Professor EA Stanko 20March
2000 ESRC
defends Radfem 'research' 22jan02 Dear Mr. Catt, .... the
complaint which you sent to us .... in which you claimed that Professor Betsy
Stanko had falsified a (research) result, namely that 1 in 4 women experience
Domestic Violence in the home. .... the source of the complaint was a
publication entitled "Counting the Costs" .... published in 1998 by
Crime Concern. .... I cannot find any grounds for supporting the view that
the findings in the report are falsified. In fact the report is very careful
in its methodology and the basis for its conclusion, and does so in
transparent detail. There seems therefore to be absolutely no case for this
to be seen as falsification and I cannot therefore accept your complaint.
Yours sincerely, Chris Caswill, Director of Research, ESRC chris.caswill@esrc Full text at www.ivorcatt.com/2004.htm Gobbledeygook Take
care of the sounds, and the sense will take care of itself - Lewis Carroll In Redbourn in
the '60s, I went across the road to a further education lecture series by a
gardener. Since he was a real gardener, his middle class audience listened in
rapt silence. They admired The Common Man.
However, I realised that the gardener, having heard lectures, and knowing
what they sounded like, was actually making noises which sounded like a
lecture, but which had no content. Fearing that my suppressed guffaws would
offend my anxious neighbours, I never attended again. Radfems, using
the argument that rationality is part of patriarchal oppression, have taken
over large swathes of academia and filled it with such gobbledeygook. A good
example is of course Catherine MacKinnon, Toward
a Feminiist Theory of the State, pub. Harvard UP 1989. I will
quote a justification for such gobbledegook by two academics in England,
Victoria Robinson and Diane Richardson; Introducing
Women's Studies, pub. Macmillan 1993/7. On p2, Robinson writes; "If a
fundamental feature of Women's Studies is the simple yet radical belief in an
approach to knowledge which places women at the centre of analysis
(challenging an androcentric/phallocentric notion of knowledge which can be
defined as men's experiences and priorities being seen as central and
representative of all), then
this realisation of a theoretical dishonesty has profound implications for
how we organise, stucture, teach and research within the disciplines and the
academy in general. This 'simple' shift in theorising and teaching recognises
the politics of theory in terms of the so-called objuctivity of knowledge,
which has failed to recognise and validate the diversity of experience of
over half of mankind. "Post-modern
claims that to pursue a total theory is mistaken and essentialist, given that
to do so inevitably means to generalise and universalise, have informed this
feminist theorising." Wow! The very
idea that radfems do not generalise! The undermining
of academic precepts, by men like Feyerabend, pre-dates the radfems. Taking
advantage of scientific treachery by F and others, we now see a full-scale,
largely successful, radfem subvertion of the probity of academia. The radfem
fixation on the penis recurs (/phallocentric).
Radfems, including lesbian radfems, think and talk about the penis far, far
more often than men do. How
exams are fixed in favour of girls The article with
the above title by Dr Madsden Pirie from The
Spectator, 20jan01, was printed in Ill Eagle 14, p8. I added a
footnote; The attack on
Physics is gong on hand in hand with the attack on Maths. They are the two
subjects I did at A level in 1953, gaining a State Scholarship to Cambridge.
Because girls do better at Geography than at Physics, Physics has now been
turned into a branch of Geography. It is particularly destructive to corrupt
Physics by bringing ecology propaganda into it. True Physics is objective,
value-free. - Ed The
future for Science ".... the
oppressed may make better biologists, physicists, and philosophers than their
oppressors. Thus we find the feminist theorist Hilary Rose saying that male
scientists have been handicapped by being men. A better wcience would be
based on women's domestic experience and practice. Professor Virginia Held
offers hope that 'a feminist standpoint would give us a quite different
understanding of even physical reality.' Conversely, those who are most
socially favored, the proverbial white, middle-class males, are in the worst
epistemic position." - Christina Hoff Sommers, Who stole feminism?, pub. Simon &
Schuster 1994, p74. The
Black Hole: Women's Studies, Science and Technology - Lynda Birke and Marsha
Henry From the book Introducing Women's Studies, ed.
academics Victoria Robinson and Diane Richardson, pub. Macmillan 1993/97, pp
221 and 222 .... At the
beginning of 'second-wave' feminism .... There was .... some hostility
towards science within the women's movement, which sometimes collapsed into
hostility towards women scientists ....
.... science .... is stereotypically associated with masculinity .... One important
strand .... involves attempts to
encourage women into science by various means, including changing the
curriculum and its delivery. This has entailed, for example, developing 'girl
friendly science' .... Challenging the content is, of course, rather more
difficult. It is also rather threatening to many scientists, including many
women scientists, and particularly so when feminists assert that science is
masculine and needs to be changed. .... in 1985, one of us encountered
hostility from a woman scientist in the audience: 'But if you succeed in
changing it,' she agonised, 'it would no longer be science'. Indeed: it would
no longer be the kind of science that so many of us have criticised. [Note
that this is only in the 1997 edition, when boys had already fallen behind in
'science'! - Ed] Feminization
of Maths My article with
the above title in Male View
oct98 referred to the article by Marian Chester Coombs in the journal Chronicles, oct97, p47, which discusses
the attack on maths also taking place in the USA entitled Dumb and Number. ".... to cripple
all, by making girls' 'learning style' mandatory for all. Mathematics .... is
being neutered ...." Elsewhere, in Ill
Eagle, I have said that Physics has been turned into a subset of
Geography, because girls do better in Geography and boys in Physics.
(Example; What are the similarities between our Moon and a certain planet of
Jupiter? - GCSE Physics today. Next, perhaps boys will be learning the names
of the rivers of Wales, because water flows downhill - a potential question
in Physics which I learnt in Geography class in my Welsh school.) We have now
reached the stage where, as reported by the headline in the Telegraph, 12jan02, p1, "Girls win
all the way from primary to university." The article says; "At both
school and university, the gap between the sexes has widened as the nature of
testing has changed. "More
emphasis has been put on coursework and continuous assessment, which reward
steady application, and less on 'sudden death' exams, which are thought to
favour boys." The article misses
altogether the removal from syllabi of content in which boys excel. Now that girls
are well ahead at all levels, even in maths, perhaps those who control
education and have, at the behest of feminists, removed course material in
which boys excel, might allow us to restore some parts at least of the
doctored syllabus. Would women in general settle for mere sex equality in
exam achievement? That would let us restore some key concepts in maths and
physics. An example in A level Maths and Physics is the couple, or torque, which girls tend to have more trouble with.
Another is angular momentum. A society which bans key concepts in the
interests of equality puts itself at a disadvantage internationally. Another factor is
suicide. As the suicide rate among young men continues to escalate, their
examination performance will deteriorate further. Someone contemplating
suicide does not study so well. A reduction in the massive man-bashing in all
the media would help here. It damages young men more than older, because the
young have only ever experienced the current anti-male vituperation. A good
man is hard to find - Eugen Hockenjos
(honorary member of ManKind), Guardian,
20mar96, p2 Tommy is a quiet
four-year-old living with his mother in Islington. He hasn't seen his father
since mum left a relationship in which she felt abused. He likes playing with
super-heroes. Since mum started a part-time job he gets looked after by a
child minder who has a baby of her own. Next month he will start nursery. In
Islington, 97 per cent of nursery staff are female. When he moves to primary
school he will be welcomed by a teaching staff which, if it is anything like
the national average, will be 80 per cent female. Should his mother have
problems requiring help from the social services he will again see only women
in the caring roles, as, similar to other local authorities, Islington's pool
of social workers is 82 per cent female. There is also
little chance for Tommy to encounter a caring male during his contact with
social services, as many of the male staff are allocated to deal with drug or
alcohol-dependent clients, or those with HIV/Aids, and are often preoccupied
with tasks considered too dangerous for Ilsington's women social workers. How
will Tommy learn to care if he has no access to male role models? .... The
absence of men in caring roles is escalating. .... [Does the
government introduce a policy aimed at restoring the proportion of men in
teaching to 50%, as for the Commons, where the female representation is around
20 or 25%? Read on. - Ed] IT
must put gender on the agenda - Rachel Fielding
18jan02 It's time for IT
to put gender on the agenda. It may sound trite but that's the message from
industry bodies and human resources executives from some of the world's largest
IT recruiters. Speaking at the
Computer Software and Services Association (CSSA) conference to tackle the
women in IT issue, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Patricia Hewitt
has called for greater collaboration between industry, government and
education to tackle the issue head on. "It is
pathetic that fewer women are entering the IT industry than 20 years ago. The
opportunities for industry and the economy in general are huge," she
said. Encouraging women
to enter and stay in IT jobs is more than simply an altruistic ideal. It
makes more business sense than ever, although getting that message through to
the industry is proving a pretty hard nut to crack. Ian Watmore,
managing director of Accenture in the UK, said that equal representation and
"equal perception" of his company by females was essential. "It's not
just a moral and ethical argument, it makes common sense," he explained.
"By 2010 I will represent a minority - white, able bodied males. Eighty
per cent of the growth market of the future will be women." And although
companies continue to complain about skills shortages in certain areas, the
situation is compounded because they're recruiting from a pool that is half
its potential size. Women represent over half of the potential workforce in
this country, but only 22 per cent of the IT workforce. The figure is
more shocking as the number of IT jobs in the UK has grown by over 50 per
cent in the last five years, with proportionally less women being recruited
than before. As recently as 1994, women made up 29 per cent of IT employees,
according to government figures. "We need to
do something at a grassroots level to change the image of the industry and
share lessons about how some employers have succeeded in broadening their
recruitment," said Anne Cantelo, project director at national training
organisation e-skills NTO. The body has launched IT Compass, a website to
attract individuals from non-IT backgrounds into the industry. ... "We need an
incentive structure to encourage all employers to invest in training and
level out the playing field," he said Poodle-Man Lance Williams, human
resources director at EDS. A Barriers to women returning to IT report
will be published by the Department of Trade and Industry on 21 January. Schools
are short of male staff, admits minister - Rebecca
Smithers, Guardian, 8jan02, p8 The govt
yesterday admitted there was a worrying shortage of male role models in the
classroom, after a Labour MP claimed that black boys were under-achieving
because primary schools were dominated by women teachers. The school
standards minister .... admitted that .... more male role models were needed
in schools. The proportion of
men entering primary teacher training courses is below the 15% target set for
the teacher training agency. [A much smaller % than women MPs now in the
Commons. Why not 50%? The implication that we need more women students
because they will go part-time or withdraw, is surely matched by the fact
that the attrition of male teachers as a result of false allegations will
continue to rise. Is any effort being made to attract men to teaching by
setting up procedures to give them better protection against false
allegations? Diane Abbott, MP for
Hackney North and Stoke Newington [bordering Islington], said black boys
needed boundaries and strong direction from "male mentors" at an
early age. [This directly contradicts the radfem anti-patriarchy propaganda
that if boys are left in the hands of women, they will avoid learning macho
behaviour, and be passive and sweet. - Ed] She said primary
schools had become a feminine domain and called on the education secretary,
Estelle Morris, to recruit more teachers from the Caribbean. ....
"There's nothing wrong [with white women] but the fact is when these
black children come into school aged five, the are doing as well as white and
Asian children. By age 16 their achievement has collapsed, particularly black
boys. [she said the issue was] a silent catastrophe. .... "Black
children are six times more likely to be excluded than others. Children in
care run 10 times the risk .... 42% of young offenders are former
excludees."
- Mary Riddell, Observer, 20jan02, p24 ".... more
than two-thirds of Afro-Caribbean families are .... single mother." -
Eamon McMahon, Letter, Observer,
13jan02 From the
Guardian, 31jan02; "Among the statistics contained in Social Trends is
the frequency of mental illness among children. Around one in 10 adolescents
had some form of mental disorder and children of lone parents were twice as
likely to suffer mental health problems as those from "couple
families". Mental illness is closely related to class. Only 5% of
children of social class 1 families had such disorders, compared to 14% of
children of social class 5. Even more
alarmingly, as many as 2% of children aged between 11 and 15 had tried to
'harm, hurt or kill themselves'." Deadbeat
dads: Victims? - Laurence A. Elder,
30jan02 Full text at www.ivorcatt.com/2019.htm .... this angry response from an
eighth-grade inner-city public school teacher: "As an
African-American public school educator in a school that serves an urban
demographic, I'm intimately familiar to the genesis of these irresponsible
fathers. There is little the government can do to help these men. They must
first help themselves, and their communities must help them help themselves. This year, 95
percent of the black boys I educate are failing my eighth-grade algebra
class, despite all of them being at least as capable [if not more] than those
that are passing. These 95 percent waste most of their class time, do little
or no homework, are preoccupied with sports and girls, deride the 5 percent
passing my class as "weak" or "soft," are consumed with
wearing the latest "gear," only read when their teacher pleads, and
laugh when they get Fs. While I love them
as intensely as I love my own son, I loathe their academic skills, attitude
and commitment. I have no doubt the public school system has ruined them with
years of inexperienced/uncommitted teachers who haven't demanded or expected
the level of performance I have of them. Not surprisingly, none of these boys
has a father at home (conversely, the 5 percent that are passing do). Very
few of them are promising athletes, which, combined with their poor academic
performance and social skills (many of the girls find them quite
undesirable), you have the recipe for gang-bait. The help these young men
need starts at home. .... I take little pride in
being the first black man they've known who a) went to college; b) doesn't
smoke, do drugs or abuse alcohol; c) doesn't try to be a "playa";
d) consistently speaks standard English; e) doesn't have a criminal record.
Black people must simply stop having children that cannot be responsibly
reared, period. It's obvious to me why this issue is never emphasized by the
social service advocates: You can't get government money for something most
people should learn at home ..." Tories
target the causes of crime - Philip Johnson,
Telegraph, 9jan02 .... Oliver
Letwin, shadow home secretary, .... focusing on social ills that fuel
criminal behaviour - notably an absence of fathers from millions of broken
homes. .... crime .... was particularly pronounced where there were a large
number of broken homes. "Britain suffers from an epidemic of father
absence," he said. "More than a fifth of our children now live
without their fathers and, for half of these, contact is so infrequent that
they are effectively fatherless." .... if a neighbourhood is allowed to
go to rack and ruin crime will quickly take root. .... Marriage
works, so what is the point of a pale imitation? - Oliver Letwin,
Shadow Home Secretary, Telegraph, 25jan02, p28 .... The Civil
Partnerships Bill .... provides us with the opportunity to restate sociaty's
commitment to marriage and the special obligations and benefits that it
entails. .... society particularly benefits from the fact that children
brought up by married parents are more likely to have a stable background.
.... children born to cohabiting couples are twice as likely to see their
parents separate as children born within marriage. The Conservative
approach is based on outcomes - it does not stem from dogma, or from a
particular set of religious values. .... politicians .... should leave well
alone when they encounter long-standing institutions .... We must build on
success. We must do noting to undermine the institution of marriage. That is why the
Civil Partnerships Bill does not merit support. It provides rights .... that
are already available to couples through marriage..... Providing a
watered-down variant of marriage would serve only to undermine the
institution, and increase the risk of the state intruding into people's lives
in order to discover whether the extent of their cohabitation justifies the
rights that they would claim. .... the state should intrude less into
people's lives. This principle is more likely to be upheld if we keep faith
with institutions, such as marriage, that are the bulwark against state
interference. Marriage is clear cut, whereas weaker alrternatives would
involve the state inquiring into the length or type of people's
relationships: an increase in intrusion into our lives. .... Marriage, which
has proved itself to be a force for good, must remain one of our essential
foundations. [Full article is at
www.ivorcatt.com/2005.htm ] Megaphone
Diplomacy - Mathew Mudge, 29jan02 Dear All, As planned, on
Friday 25th January 2002 from 18:30 to 20:15, between 35 and 40 Equal
Parenting Coalition demonstrators manned a peaceful but very vocal picket
outside the Severnshed Restaurant in The Grove, Bristol. The occasion was the
annual dinner of the Bristol Solicitors Family Law Association and marked the
first demonstrating event of 2002. The weather was
less than helpful being somewhat windy and wet but did not prevent the
generation of a warm reception for those attending the dinner. Many colourful
placards were evident as well as the new EPC handouts bearing the new logo
(big thanks to Matt OConnor). Our new megaphone
(courtesy of Spike and Julie) was put to good use (after some initial
teething trouble getting the batteries in the right way !) and the diners
were left in no doubt about our reason for being there. Sheepish looks were
the order of the evening, made only worse by the courtesy of the protesters.
Anson Allen had to be seen to be believed sporting a shirt (with a collar !),
bow tie and bowler hat, Anson provided a doorman service (with umbrella) for
those being dropped off at the restaurant door. Bolder souls parked further
up the street and walked past us, braving the presence of fathers, mothers,
aunts, uncles, grandparents, family friends and supporters. The demo was
covered by a reporter and press photographer from the Bristol Evening Post
and Anson is liaising with them about press releases etc. One new record to
note a great grandmother had braved the elements and travelled all the way
from Cardiff for the event. Anyone know the
details of the Great Grandparents Federation ? May I publicly
thank all those who attended, several who did not quite make it due to
traffic hold-ups, and those who telephoned their support during the protest.
Our thanks too for the patience and understanding demonstrated by the staff
of the Severnshed Restaurant who took it all with grace and in good humour. It would be
remiss of me not to thank the van full of local constabulary officers who
were present throughout. I introduced myself to them at the beginning of the
evening and made sure they knew we were not there to cause trouble. One
officer thanked me for my trouble and pointed out to me that he recognised me
from the Bath demo where he had been on duty too. The officer asked for
leaflets for one of his colleagues in the back of the van who was
experiencing the same difficulties in his private life and quantities of
leaflets, posters and membership forms were handed over. To conclude, I am
in no doubt about the effectiveness of targeting such events for action and
judging by the many favourable comments received on the night from
by-passers, bus, van and lorry drivers (and even from some of those attending
the dinner), we are succeeding in our aims of raising public awareness and generating
public sympathy for the plight of our children. Now is not the time to relax. Even a year ago,
we would have all been delighted to have a crowd of 40 people attend a demo
in the middle of summer. To do so in January on an evening of quite dreadful
weather indicates how far we have come in such a short time. Our children now
need us to convert this number from tens into hundreds and then thousands.
Many more events are being planned and absolute support and commitment is now
vital. I am not writing this for the regular attendees quite rightly I could
be accused of preaching to the converted. We must now encourage and motivate
all those who have yet to support a demo to do so. I have yet to meet the
person who attends only 1 demo and then walks away EVERYONE who comes once
will be made welcome and I'm sure, will wish to keep coming. That's all for
now watch for details of the next demo. Kind regards and best wishes to
everyone; Matthew Mudge, Cardiff. Also see www.ivorcatt.com/2013.htm Sunday
fathers: their untold story - Maureen Freely, Marie
Claire dec01 .... Above all,
we must resist the tendency to use children as weapons in a continuing battle
against another partner or another adult. .... 40% of fathers lose contact
with their children within two years of separation or divorce. This is a
famous statistic and is usually read at meaning 40% of post-divorce dads are
either deadbeats - who don't want to know or pay for their children - or
beyond the pale in some other way. They must have histories of abuse, neglect
or violence, people assume. However, it is
beginning to emerge that a large number of these fathers are unjustifiably
stereotyped. Hiding inside this shadowy 40% are hundreds of thousands of
ordinary men who have been barred from seeing their children and often for
reasons that would be deemed sexist if applied to women. .... the Children
Act, for all its fine words about shared parenting, gives non-resident
parents - usually the father - only one right: the right to apply to a court
to see their child. However, this is
rarely made explicit. As one father told me, 'No one tells you anything. You
go to a solicitor, who tells you nothing .... .... the court reporter decided
his two girls did not want to see him because that's what they said in an
interview conducted in the presence of the mother. When this father asked why
the family court reporter hadn't spoken to the girls alone, she said,
'Actually, I was thinking of taking them for a walk, but it was raining.'
When he asked if she might have made a different decision if it had been
sunny and she had taken the girls for that walk, she replied, 'Yes, I
probably would have done.' But by then it was too late to undo the damage. .... a court
reporter can make any recommendations for any reason. There is no established
way for her to make sure she's not unduly influenced by any personal views
she might have about what is 'right' for a child. Due to added pressure of
work, she is often obliged to arrive at her decisions quickly. There is no
set form she must follow. There's not even a requirement that she ascertains
the wishes of the children in a safe place where neither parent can
pressurise them. In one case, the
court reporter cold find no reason why a child shouldn't see more of his
father. She went on to say that, 'Nonetheless, the mother must be concerned
about something', and advised that his contact be limited to two hours, once
every six weeks. Another father with no signs of abnormality had to undergo
three medical/psychological exams on the recommendation of a court reporter
to prove he was normal. When the results were judged to be inconclusive
because he only 'appeared normal', his application to see his children was
denied. .... Unfortunately, it
is impossible to report on the precise nature of these cases as judgements
are confidential. Not even the judiciary knows what the overall picture is.
The can't even see if different judges or courts have different types of
outcomes. There has been no effort to collate data on the first 1 million cases
that have gone through the system. Everyone is in the dark. But it would
appear that the court's standard solution in contact cases is to support the
parent it perceives as the primary carer and to marginalise the other. And
there's a pretty solid consensus now among professionals that this isn't
always good news for the children. .... The Coalition for
Equal Parenting, which includes mothers' as well as fathers' groups, would
like a system in which it is much more difficult for one parent to make false
allegations against the other. .... [We shall be meeting
more and more triumphalism, see below, since today an employer needs to avoid
employing white males in order to steer clear of equality and sexist
legislation. - Ed] "Goodbye
Boys" - Maggie Brown, Radio Times 12jan02, cover and p39 Meet the women
who are taking over the news. .... In announcing the
appointment of [Kirsty] Young, Kevin Lygo, Channel 5's director of
programmes, believes that he has found the answer. "The main news
programmes have all been presented by men in their fifities and upwards, ....
To have an intelligent, attractive, talented professional woman at the centre
of our news and our channel is equally important. It is positioning the
channel in keeping with what we are. She is a modern woman, a working mother:
she personifies the values we aant to be associated with." .... Attwell, 50, tuns
the news content of BBC News 24, BBC World and services on BBC3 and BBC4. She
recently watched a boxful of tapes from young hopefuls: 15 women, just two
men. "I can't tell you the trouble I've had finding male presenters -
ones of quality, able to cope with anything. They are really thin on the
ground. ...." So why are good
male presenters so hard to find? "I don't know ...." [Have young white
males finally got the message, that a TV channel must use a non-white or a
woman as front man in order to fend off Employment Tribunals, the Equal
Opportunities Commission and the Race Relations Board. With a PC frontage,
the TV company may get away with employing a few white males with technical
skills in the background. - Ed] The
baby war - Tessa Boase
dares to be politically incorrect - Sunday
Times News Review, 11nov01, p1 .... Supermums.
But many childless women secretly call them an absolute pain. Is motherhood
compatible with work? .... I get no
benefits equal to family pension or healthcare plans. .... none-parents are
being cheated .... the "new found fury of the childless". Largely missing
from the debate is the question of whether couples become parents as a matter
of absolute choice or whether they are meeting the needs of society, which
should consequently take collective responsibility for children.
...."They're continuing the human race, for God's sake, ...." What
men earn will be revealed to women - Sarah Womack, Telegraph, 6dec01, p4 Women will have
the right to know how much male colleagues doing similar work are paid, the
Govt announced yesterday. Companies who
refuse the information could be taken to an employment tribunal. The move is
aimed at closing the 18 per cent pay gap between men and women in similar
full-time jobs. Patricia Hewitt,
the Trade and Industry Secretary, said the employment law changes would not
solve the problem of unequal pay overnight. "A cultural
change among employers to value women's contribution to business success
properly was also needed," she said. She wanted women
to test an employer's equal pay policy by obtaining information about wages
and job grades. Too many women
were becoming "detached" from well-paid jobs by motherhood, she
said. Mrs Hewett made
her announcement in response to a report by Denise Kingsmill, the Govt's
adviser on equal pay, which said employers' attitudes to equal employment and
pay should be open to public scrutiny. Firms were urged
to launch pay reviews to make sure women staff were not being paid less than
men. Larger companies
will have to publish details of how they train and recruit staff. Thirty years
after the Equal Pay Act, women are still getting paid less than men,
resulting in a deficit that could add up to as much as £250,000 over a
lifetime. On average, for
every £1 a man earns, a woman gets only 82p over both the public and private
sectors. In the banking
and insurance sector, male pay averages approximately £18 per hour. Women
receive just under £10.50. [But see P Hewett
and P Leach, Social Justice, Children and
Families, pub. IPPR 1993, p iv; "....The pay
gap between women and men is largely a result of family responsibilities. The
earnings of single childless women, on average, are over 95% of those of
single, childless men: but married mothers earn, on average, only 60% of the
pay of married fathers." She has to avoid
the significance of her own figures. She is using the failure of married
mothers to earn much, to raise the pay of single women above that of single
men. That will make young men even more unmarriageable, and accelerate the
drop in the marriage rate and the birth rate, both already at crisis level,
because women and men will pay an increasing penalty if they marry. The missing
statistic in the Hewett book is that single men, single women and married
women all earn about the same (see Gilder), while Married men earn 70% more
than all the others. However, there is enough information in the Hewett book
to show that the present Hewett initiative is undertaken by an anti-social
shyster bent on destroying the family, or else by a stupid woman. Harman's 1993
book The Century Gap, p123,
says; "Young men and women with
comparable qualifications but who are not parents earn much the same as each
other. When men become fathers their earnings are unaffected or increase;
when women become mothers their earnings drop...." Harman, along with
radfems in general, is immune to statistics, so her confirmation that singles
earn the same is of limited value, but worth mentioning to show the hypocrisy
extends beyond Hewett to the full coterie surounding Blair. - Ed] Worms
are crushed by a feminazi boot - letter from Andrew
Schofield, Telegraph, 8dec01 Some years ago, The Two Ronnies conjured up a vision of
Stalinist feminism in a sketch called "The Worm that Turned". I
never thought I would live to see it become a reality. Yet the announcement
by Patricia Hewett that female employees are to enjoy the right to
confidential salary information about their male colleagues (report, Dec.6),
I believe I might. It remains to be
seen whether the courts uphold reciprocal rights for men. What is truly
disturbing, and should worry women as much as men, is what it reveals of a
government terrorised by political correctness and in thrall to a
"feminazi" clique. A series of
bone-headed initiatives in the area of employment law is already in danger of
diminishing the achievements of successful women. European and govt money
funds sexually exclusive training centres, while bounties are offered to
employers to hire female engineers and scientists. The Equal
Opportunities Commission is now seeking the right of automatic promotion for
women, with the burden of proof shifted to employers to prove inadequacy or
incompetence. What next in the
gender jihad? Men's health is already comprehensively neglected, in spite of
reliable new screening methods for the scourge of prostate cancer. Men are
routinely asset stripped in the courts without regard to the conduct of a
former spouse. But overpromoted women present the thorniest problem of all,
for the respect of peers is a matter of private conscience. Patricia Hewett,
Harried Harperson and Labour's other unreconstructed feminists may have to
consider an oriental mode of ritual obeisance. It could be the only way to
keep this cruel and capricious show on the road. - Andrew
Schofield, Cambridge Reality Control of the
media by radfems prevents the public from knowing that the denial of basic
human rights to fathers is routine. The hidden agenda is the belief, fostered
by Stinko of RHC, who is funded by the Home Office to fabricate false
statistics, that the main threat to a child is its own father; that the
reason why a father wishes to access his child is in order batter it or else
to sexually molest it. This letter is one of many. - Ed Dear Ivor, Thanks
for sending me the extracts on the DV research and the goings on at RHC. I sent copies on
to my MP FD, pointing out that the Melanie Phillips quote - of lies about men
being accepted as truth - was nowhere better adopted in vicious anti-male
style than by our own A City Council, who despite knowing I have 'equal
parental rights' AND a court order to see my son, supply my ex with 3 nights
a week social work carers, babysitting whilst I pace the streets totally
unable even to see my 6 year
old. This is naked us of social work for political ends and the thin end of
an ugly wedge. Social services being used to facilitate the exclusion of a
man from his children and refusing even to discuss the matter. Like many I am a
not-too-proud-of-it member of FNF .... I very much appreciate the stance of
the publications and hope I can be of some small help .... All of the best, PH. When
ignorance is not bliss for the rest of us I just do not
understand why I know more about the law than all the salaried judges,
relevant journalists and relevant Cabinet Ministers put together. Do none of
them operate their brains when addressing legal matters? "Ministers'
revolt saves trial by jury. - Francis Gibb, Times,
21jan02, p1. "Plans to
scrap the right to trial by jury for many offences are to be abandoned in the
face of strong opposition led by prominent members of the Cabinet. .... One
option would be to implement Sir Robin's proposal for a formalised system of
plea-bargaining, increasing incentives for defendants to plead guilty before
magistrates. Conviction in the Crown Court would result in heavier
punishment. ...." Plea-bargaining
increases the conviction rate, and will always be exploited by the police.
Even after the end of Thatcher, their promotion will still be linked to their
conviction rate. However, the most insidious factor, which none of these
highly salaried people link in, is parole. I am in
correspondence with many falsely imprisoned prisoners who refuse to admit to
a crime they did not commit, and so serve their full sentence rather than
only half. I set out to organise a "crossed fingers behind your
back" "confession", so that the prisoner could proceed to sue
all the rogues to framed him, even after "admitting" the crime so
as to get out of prison and back home earlier. (My friend, the wife-murderer
Charles Hanson, see Ill Eagle
10, p4, www.ivorcatt.2000.htm whose help I needed, refused to help,
so I gave up.) I think particularly of a policeman framed on a rape charge
and still in prison in Northern Ireland, who finally, after some years,
succumbed and falsely admitted guilt so as to get back to his wife and children
two years earlier. (He tells me that he now faces listening to courses run by
virulent radfems, which he finds extremely upsetting, on how to not rape
again.) It seems that none of the judges, politicians and journalists have
the motivation to think these matters through, although it is easy to do so.
Another man, Koupparis, who was framed and sentenced to four years, discussed
in my book The Hook and the Sting,
on my old website www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk, told me he served his full term so that
afterwards he would still be able to sue for wrongful imprisonment. These
cases are all around us, but not around politicians, judges and journalists. What is so
terrifying is that a highly intelligent woman friend of mine stuck to the
disastrous idea that admission of guilt has to remain the first atep in the
rehabilitation process, even though she was familiar the way all the lawyers
and juddges in my divorce case welcomed perjury, and knew that it was rampant
in the courts. So it is not only politicians, judges and journalists who
refuse to use their brains when addressing these terribly important matters. A legal and
criminal system run by people whose only interest is their golf handicap is
threat to every one of us. - Ed False
result fear over DNA tests - Nick Paton Walsh, Observer, 27jan02, p11 One in every
hundred forensic tests performed on the DNA of suspected criminals may give a
false result, according to the first research of its kind into laboratory
error rates. .... DNA testing is widely used to convince juries of a
suspect's guilt or presence at the scene of a crime, and was thought to be
almost flawless. The findings will
shock British DNA laboratories, which deny that errors exist. .... the first
accuracy tests carried out on DNA laboratories [in Texas] .... calculated
.... error had occurred in 12 in every 1,000 tests. .... Charles
Hanson W1638 Charles Hanson H M Prison Kingston Milton Rd., Portsmouth PO3 6AS 25jan02 Dear Ivor, I regret that you
do not see the way that all those prisoners who profess their so called
innocence see things. First let me say
that I have met many many prisoners who tell you that they are innocent, in
fact so many that all the innocent people must be in prison which suggests
that the outside world is perhaps the more dangerous than I thought and
perhaps prison is after all the safest place to be. I have personally
known those that have steadfastly maintained their innocence who would NEVER
dream of admitting any guilt for short term gains like that clown in Northern
Ireland. Stephen Dowling the lifer who was released last year after 27 years
and was recently cleared by the Court of Appeal would have been released
years ago had he admitted his guilt, as it was he was 10 years over his
tariff when he was finally granted bail to await the outcome of his appeal
which was a foregone conclusion, he too had a family and loved ones as did
the Birmingham 6, the Guildford 4, Judith Ward, Stefan Kisvko, Andy Evans
(did 21 years) and others. NONE admitted
their guilt, all were lifers and all had loved ones. These weren't |